The Second Saladin Read Online Free PDF Page B

a surprisingly competitive level of basketball was played by ex-college jocks; Chardy had set scoring records that, for all Bill knew, still stood. Chardy had been some kind of All-American at the small college he’d gone to on a scholarship, and he’d had a tryout with a pro team.
    He canned another jumper and then seemed to tire of the exercise. The ball rolled across the floor into darkness. Chardy retrieved a towel and came over to Bill.
    “Well, Old Bill, I see I didn’t wait you out.”
    “Did you really want to, Paul?”
    Chardy only smiled at this interesting question.
    Then he said, “I guess they want me. I guess I’m an asset again.”
    Why deny it? Speight thought. “They do. You are.”
    Chardy considered this.
    “Who’s running the show. Melman?”
    “Melman’s a big man now. Didn’t you know? He’s Deputy Director of the whole Operations Directorate. He’ll be Director of it someday, maybe even DCI if they decide to stay in the shop.”
    Chardy snorted at the prospect of Sam Melman as Director of Central Intelligence, with his picture on the cover of
Time
and
Newsweek
as had been Helms’s and Colby’s and Turner’s.
    “We’re not even running this thing out of Operations, Paul. We’re running it out of Management and Services, their office of Security. So—”
    “What the hell is this ‘Operations’?” Chardy asked suddenly.
    He really had been out of touch, Speight realized.
    “I’m sorry. You were in the mountains, I guess, when they reorganized. I didn’t learn until later myself. Plans is now called Operations.”
    “It sounds like a World War Two movie.”
    “Paul, forget Operations. Forget the old days, the old guys. Forget all that stuff. Forget Melman. He was just doing his job. He’ll be a long way away from you. Think about Ulu Beg in America.”
    “All the stuff about Ulu Beg is in the reports, in thefiles. The reports of the Melman inquiry. Tell them to dig that stuff out.”
    “They already have, Paul. Paul, you know Ulu Beg, you trained him. You fought with him, you know his sons. You were like a brother to him. You—”
    But talk of Ulu Beg seemed to hurt Chardy. He looked away, and Speight saw that he’d have to play his last card, the one he didn’t care for, the one that smelled. But it had been explained to him in great detail how important all this was, how he could not fail.
    “Paul—” He paused, full of regret Chardy deserved better than the shot he was about to get. “Paul, we’re going to have to bring Johanna Hull in too.”
    Chardy said, “I can’t help you there. I wish I could. Look, I have to take a shower.”
    “Paul, maybe I’d better make myself clearer.” He wished he’d sucked down a few more rum-and-Cokes. “These are very cold people, Paul, these people in Security. They’re very cold about everything except results. They’re going to have to bring Johanna under some kind of control—and they want you to do it—because they think Ulu Beg will go to her. She’s about the only place he could go. But if you don’t do it, believe me, they’ll find somebody who will.”
    Chardy looked at him with disgust.
    “It’s gone that far?”
    “They’re very frightened of Ulu Beg. They’ll play rough on this one.”
    “I guess they will,” Chardy said, and Speight knew he’d won his little victory.

3
    H e assumed they would be hunting him, but it did not matter and did not particularly frighten him. He had been hunted before—by Iraqi soldiers and policemen, by Arabs, by Iranians, by Kurds even. Now Americans.
    But what could they do? For he was in the mountains now. Ulu Beg felt almost comfortable here; he knew this place. He had been born and raised in mountains and fought in mountains and these, though in many ways different, were in just as many ways the same as his own.
    They were known as the Sierritas, ranging northward from the border for twenty or thirty kilometers before panning out into cruel desert plain on the